This invention relates to a multi-loaded disk drive arrangement, which is adapted to mount a plurality of disks on a disk-shaped disk table to rotate this disk table in a clockwise direction or in a counterclockwise direction to move a desired disk on the disk table up to a recording/reproducing position to record/reproduce that disk by means of a disk recording/reproducing unit provided with an optical pick-up.
As the disk for recording/reproducing various information such as music or image, etc., optical disks, photomagnetic disks, and the like are widely used in recent years.
There have been proposed multi-loaded disk drive arrangements in which a plurality of such disks are loaded. As an example of these multi-loaded disk drive arrangements, an apparatus in which a plurality of disks are mounted on a disk-shaped disk table to rotate the disk table so that it is located at a predetermined reproducing position to select a desired disk is disclosed in the Japanese Patent Application Laid Open No. 289960/87.
In FIG. 1, disks 101 used in this driving multi-loaded disk arrangement designated by reference numeral 100 (hereinafter simply also referred to as disk drive 100) are, e.g., compact disks for music, or video disks for image, etc.
This disk drive 100 is of a structure described below. Namely, a plurality of disks 101 (e.g., five disks) can be mounted on disk mount portions 103A to 103E of a disk-shaped disk table 103 within a tray 102. A motor 104 for moving the tray 102 is driven to insert the tray 102 into the disk drive through a reduction mechanism section 105 and a rack 106. Then, a gear 107 fixed on the shaft of a motor 104 and meshed with a gear 103a provided on the outer circumference of the disk table 103 is rotationally driven to rotate the disk table 103, thus to move a desired disk 101 on the disk table 103 up to a reproducing position Prl at the upper part of the figure. When the desired disk 101 is thus selected, the motor 104 is rotationally driven for a second time to raise or elevate a vertically movable base (not shown) through a pin 108 by a cam gear 105a of the reduction mechanism section 105 to set a disk reproducing section 109 so that it is in a reproducible state. In this state, the desired disk 101 is mounted on a turn table 110 of the disk reproducing section 109. Thus, this disk can be reproduced by an optical pick-up 111.
In addition, there have been also proposed of multi-loaded disk drives of another type adapted so that a plurality of disks are mounted on a disk-shaped disk table. Some disk drives of this type include a gear for rotating the disk table, a cam for rotating the disk reproducing section so that it is located at a predetermined reproducing position, and a clutch mechanism reciprocating between the gear and the cam and connected to a drive source. In this case, the clutch mechanism is of a structure such that the direction of rotation thereof in the case of rotating the disk table so that it is located at a predetermined reproducing position and that in the case of rotating the disk reproducing section so that it is located at a predetermined reproducing position are different from each other.
Meanwhile, in the case of the conventional multi-loaded disk drive arrangement 100 as shown in FIG. 1 (as previously described), the drive source for rotating the disk table 103 and the drive source for vertically moving the disk reproducing section 109 are different. Accordingly, such disk drive has the problem that the operation for controlling these drive sources is complicated, with the result that an erroneous operation is apt to occur, and the structure is complicated, etc.
On the other hand, in the case of the multi-loaded disk drive arrangement of another type (not shown), as previously described, the direction of rotation for rotating the disk table is always fixed by the operation of the clutch mechanism. For this reason, there is the problem that when selecting a desired disk on the disk table, it takes much time for moving a disk remotest from the reproducing position up to the reproducing position.